Bubble, Bubble
by eitHer9335
Summary: Sara spent months in Salem, and though she came back apparently unchanged, that doesn't mean she forgot what happened there. She held herself together through the team's trip to Salem and the ensuing Disney hell, but after, the memories might be just a little too much to keep in. Luckily, Ava's there when the dam bursts.


**A short, simple, fluffy story. Let me know if you like it, and go read my other stories (all for the Lucifer TV show) if you want.**

* * *

Ava shut the door behind her and locked it with a decisive click. Her apartment was dark and quiet, and she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She was relieved to be done dealing with the morons at the Time Bureau, but the Legends had successfully dealt with the Fairy Godmother – if you could call having a butt-naked Ray in Nate's arms a success – and she'd been half-hoping she might find Sara here.

No such luck. She could navigate around the place in darkness, and she expertly slipped her shoes off, got herself a glass of water, then headed into the bedroom to put away her bag all without turning on any lights. But the sight of a dark figure, lying on her bed, silhouetted against the white comforter, almost gave her a heart attack. She dropped her bag and fumbled for her gun. "Who the hell - ?"

"Ava," the figure said, and she put her gun back, letting out a shuddering sigh of relief.

"Sara! You really scared me." She flicked the light on, not wanting any more surprises, and looked over at her girlfriend in some confusion. "What are you doing here?"

Sara sat up, crossing her legs, leaving the comforter unwrinkled underneath her with her unique assassin's way of moving. She wore black jeans and a green tank top, and she ran a hand slowly through her hair, lips moving but no response forthcoming.

Ava hesitated for a moment, then came to a decision and went to put away her bag in the closet, locking her gun in her safe and hanging up her jacket. Back still turned, she probed, "Why didn't you say something when I came home?"

Her girlfriend's voice was a moment in coming. "I hadn't made up my mind if I wanted to hide," it said.

With difficulty, Ava stopped herself from spinning around, instead working the hair tie out of her hair and shaking her head to send it cascading down over her shoulders. "Why would you want to hide?" she prompted gently.

"I didn't know if I wanted to talk to you."

An Ava less experienced in the ways of Sara Lance might have been offended, or even ashamed, worried that she herself had done something wrong, but instead she bit her lip against the sympathy that made her breath catch. She turned around, but walked right past Sara to turn on a bedside lamp and turn off the bright overhead light. "You're allowed to be here and not talk," she commented, sitting ungracefully on the bed beside her unusually timid girlfriend. "I could rant about how annoying my coworkers are for hours, you'd never get in a word."

She felt more than saw Sara relax beside her, and Ava leaned closer ever so slightly. Her shoulder hit Sara's and her confidence grew. Whatever was going on, she could help Sara through it.

"You know there's a way to make your coworkers less annoying," Sara joked from behind her, readjusted her position but staying in contact with Ava. "You could let your hair down, they'd be too busy staring to give you shit."

Ava sighed happily as Sara began to pull her fingers through her hair, teasing back, "You're telling me you don't enjoy the thought of having that part of me all to yourself?"

"I am a little possessive, its true," Sara admitted, tucking herself a little closer to Ava. "But can you blame me? Look at how beautiful my girlfriend is."

That brought a soft smile to Ava's face. She let her gaze drift purposelessly around the room, the gentle silence between the two of them stretching longer.

"Did Rip tell you how he lost his memory and ended up working for George Lucas?" Sara finally asked.

Caught by surprise, Ava laughed a little to herself. "Um, yeah, didn't your guys' ship get hit by a nuclear bomb? Rip time-scattered the team, then touched the Time Drive. It sent him to the seventies."

Ava could feel against her back the deep breath Sara took, her slow exhale. "Ray had so much fun when we went back to the period he got stranded in," she murmured. "Introduced us to his T-Rex friend Gertrude. And Firestorm got stranded together, lucky bastards."

Ava did the math in her head. "Mick?" she prompted.

"Injured, so Rip couldn't scatter him. He got put in stasis, then helped Nate pick us all back up after."

Tension rose in Ava, but she kept her voice calm as she asked, "You?"

Sara's hands stopped moving in her hair, and for a moment Ava was afraid she had pushed it too far, but after a moment Sara answered her. "Salem."

"Oh." The pieces clicked into place. "Sara, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," Sara answered immediately. "You had nothing to do with it, didn't even know."

An ironic smile twisted Ava's mouth and she finally turned around. "I know, Sara, I wasn't apologizing," she told her, reaching out to grasp her girlfriend's hands. "It's sympathy, and it wouldn't kill you to accept it."

Sara did not meet Ava's eyes, instead looking down to study their intertwined hands, her eyelashes dark and defined against her cheeks.

"Don't," Ava said.

"What?" Sara managed, glancing up for a moment.

Ava's smile widened. "Don't run, please. I know you could be out the window before I knew what was happening, and I know you're thinking about it."

That got a weak, startled laugh out of her, and Sara leaned in to bury her face in Ava's shoulder, muffling her chuckles as they turned to tears.

"It's okay," Ava soothed, releasing Sara's hands to pull her closer. "I'm here." She leaned over to get a tissue from the nightstand, offering it to her girlfriend, staying as close as she could the whole time.

"God," Sara gasped angrily, pulling away to scrub furiously at her eyes. "I hadn't thought about this in years." She blinked hard, tears clinging to the ends of her eyelashes, swiping a hand under her streaming nose. "It was so easy to forget about it, no one else knew and there was so much going on…"

"You had just become Captain," Ava realized suddenly.

"Yeah," Sara sniffled. "Yeah, I had, and it was hard enough making sure the crew didn't all kill each other. There wasn't exactly a chance to, to, there wasn't anybody who – " she cut herself off, then blew her nose, settling down into a more comfortable position, still half in Ava's lap. "I'm sorry."

Ava tucked Sara's beautiful hair behind one ear, then cupped her cheek with infinite tenderness. "What happened in Salem?"

Sara shook her head bitterly. "In the grand scheme of everything I've dealt with, nothing. I've had to live behind a façade before, I've had to censor myself, let injustices go unpunished, I've had to be alone and stranded, its just that…" her eyes dropped to the bed spread in what looked like shame. "This was just when I had started to hope I didn't have to anymore." She shrugged slightly, brushing away a stray tear. "It hurt way more than it should, just because I had my guard down. And then I just forgot about it, and going back and having to deal with Zari's crisis of morality and not being able to do anything about all of it, well, it sucked."

"It sounds like it," Ava murmured. "And?" She gently pushed Sara's chin up until she met her eyes. "You're not alone anymore."

Sara offered a watery smile. "I know."


End file.
